d Thine enemies with Thy strong arm."

So the prophet Ezekiel is directed--

"Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh, king of Egypt,
and say unto him, thou wast likened unto a young lion of the
nations: yet art thou as a dragon in the seas."

In all these passages it is only in an indirect and secondary sense that
we can see any constellational references in the various descriptions of
"the dragon that is in the sea." It is the crocodile of Egypt that is
intended; Egypt the great oppressor of Israel, and one of the great
powers of evil, standing as a representative of them all. The serpent or
dragon forms in the constellations also represented the powers of evil;
especially the great enemy of God and man, "the dragon, that old
serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan." So there is some amount of
appropriateness to the watery dragons of the sky--_Hydra_ and
_Cetus_--in these descriptions of _Rahab_, the dragon of Egypt, without
there being any direct reference. Thus it is said of the Egyptian
"dragon in the seas," "I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the
earth, and to the fowls of the heaven;" and again, "I will cause all the
fowls of the heaven to settle upon thee," just as _Corvus_, the Raven,
is shown as having settled upon _Hydra_, the Water-snake, and is
devouring its flesh. Again, Pharaoh, the Egyptian dragon, says, "My
river is mine own, and I have made it for myself;" just as _Cetus_, the
Sea-monster, is represented as pouring forth _Eridanus_, the river, from
its mouth.

[Illustration: ANDROMEDA AND CETUS.]

But a clear and direct allusion to this last grouping of the
constellations occurs in the Apocalypse. In the twelfth chapter, the
proud oppressor dragon from the sea is shown us again with much fulness
of detail. There the Apostle describes his vision of a woman, who
evidently represents the people of God, being persecuted by a dragon.
There is still a reminiscence of the deliverance of Israel in the Exodus
from Egypt, for "the woman _fled into the wilderness_, where she hath a
place prepared of God, that there they may nourish her a thousand two
hundred and threescore days." And the vision goes on:--

"And the serpent cast out of his mouth, after the woman water
as a river, that he might cause her to be carried away by the
stream. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened
her mouth, and swallowed up the river which the dragon cast
out of